10 Tips for Altering Your Clothes

Podcast Transcript

Sarai

Welcome back to Seamwork Radio, where we share practical ideas for building a creative process so you can sew with intention and joy. And Haley's out on parental leave with her new baby still, so I'm flying solo, and I've invited some really fun guests to join me on the podcast. And today, I'm here with Allie from Allie Upcycles.

Hi, Allie.

Allie

Hello. How are you?

Sarai

I'm good. A little bit about Allie... Allie's social media brand is dedicated to accessible and size-inclusive thrift flips. She just published her debut book called Not Your Gran's Sewing Book: Easy Alterations for the Perfect Fit at Any Size. Allie is here to share 10 of her favorite tips for altering your own clothes with you. This is really fun because while we often talk about sewing your own clothes from scratch, Allie is an expert on making alterations to clothes you thrift or you buy in the store. This is a really valuable skill to have, and I'm so excited to talk to you about it today, Allie.

Allie

Very excited as well. Thank you so much.

Sarai

Tell me a little bit about your story and how you got into this.

Allie

I started sewing from a pretty young age. My mom is somebody who always sewed. And growing up, I developed a very large chest at quite a young age. So we're talking seventh-grade confirmation dress shopping, eighth grade graduation dress shopping. Those were absolute nightmares. I could not fit in anything from, oh, goodness, whatever the stores back then... if it was a teen-focused shop, it was not going to fit me. My mom had to get really good at altering my clothes for me and finding things in larger sizes or altering strapless dresses because this was late 2000, so it was the era of strapless everything. Always adding in straps so that I could wear bras underneath and always altering my clothes for me. So that became part of my life from a pretty young age, realizing that if I wanted to wear any sort of trendy clothing, it was going to need to be altered from something that already existed, or it was going to need to be made from scratch. So yeah, as I got older and saw that sewing was becoming really popular on social media and thrift flipping and upcycling, I was really excited to see that.

But I also noticed that a lot of the people that were showing up on the For You pages and in your algorithm were typically very slender women. It was a lot of taking really large, oversize shirts that they found at the thrift store and making them into a cute little bikini set or just shrinking everything down really small. I thought, that's great for you, but for me and a lot of other people out there, the sizes are limited in the thrift store once you get to a certain point. You don't have the option to make things smaller. Usually, you're trying to find the bare minimum that's available in the thrift store and find ways to make it larger or ways that are going to accommodate your body better. And so that's why I started my account, Alley Upcycles.

Sarai

That's so cool. You found this little, this area that wasn't being addressed for people, like a real need that people had, and you found a way to serve that. That's so awesome.

Allie

Yeah, people were very excited about it, which was really fun. Getting messages and comments from people saying, it's so nice to actually see somebody with my body type, or, this has gotten me excited about dusting off the sewing machine again. And that's the best bit to me, is seeing people get really excited about the idea of sewing.

Sarai

Yeah. And there's so much you can do with things you find at the thrift store. There's so much opportunity there.

Allie

Absolutely. And it's going to take a lot of constraint for me during this to not just go rambling off about all of the other ideas and things that you can do and things from the thrift store.

Sarai

Well, let's get right into your tips then, and we can take it from there because I'm dying to ask you questions. I don't want to give away any of your secrets before you get to them.

Allie

Oh, sure. When it comes to my tips, the things that I also like to keep in mind is that I am a home sewer, born and bred. And I think a lot of people are as well. My tips really come from a place of what are easy things that I think that anybody can master. We won't be learning very complex things today, but things that the everyday sewest is going to be able to achieve.

Sarai

That's perfect.

Allie

The first thing that I always recommend is to check the seam allowance. Because one of the easiest things is just, you find something you're like, this is so close to fitting, but It's just pulling a bit in the chest. The waist is a bit too tight. The easiest thing is, if there's something you really like, look at the seams, and if there's a large seam allowance, that means you've got permission to buy it and you can just sew along the seam closer to that overlocked edge and then take out the original seam stitching, iron out where those folds used to be from that seam. That'll usually give you, around at least a centimeter of extra space. For a lot of people, that could be enough to make something just that bit more easy to move in.

Sarai

I think it's so easy to underestimate how much extra room you can get from those little tweaks when you have multiple seams or going around your body, too.

Allie

Absolutely. Yeah, because on a shirt, you're usually going to have at least two side seams. If you're lucky, there might be one down the back or down the center as well. Yeah, truly, the more seams, the more you can make this garment fit you better.

Sarai

Yeah, that's awesome.

Allie

Yeah. Then conversely to letting it out, I utilize darts all the time. That's really my go-to because I often find things will usually be gaping in my armpit area from just my chest forcing them out. But also I'll find that I will find shirts or dresses that you might have to size up to be able to get it to fit over your chest, which then means that that waist can be then wider than you'd like it to be and not flatter you in the way that you'd like it to flatter you. I use darts for everything. I'll use them all the time to take in that gap on the armpits. I'll use them like front darts, right under the bust to help take in the waist of, say, a dress, shirt more. Again, on the waistband, which is not a problem that I have.

I know a lot of people say, oh, I've got really wide hips and then a really narrow waist. I've got a thick waist with the wide hips. That's usually where I'm letting things out, but for many people, that waistband dart is really going to save you.

Sarai

Yeah. I think adding fish eye darts is such an easy thing to do that can totally change the shape for a lot of dresses.

Allie

Absolutely. And I do encourage people to practice making darts on scrap fabric before doing the real thing, because my darts were very wonky for a long time in my sewing before realizing that you had to have that tip trail off the fabric at the end. I used to sometimes, if I had the needles, if I pinned things on the wrong side, I think I would start sewing from the dart tip. Like, oh, I just reverse it. I would start sewing from the dart tip and then back stitch. If you haven't sewed a dart before, if you have sewn a dart, you're reaching it back because the dart tip needs to just trail off the fabric and tie it in a nice knot at the end. Backstitching is going to make it. You're going to get the real dark dimples there if you do that. Another thing that I love doing is swapping out the sleeves of shirts that I find in the thrift store. Because I think, especially, I'd say typically the larger body you have, the more likely it is that the clothes that you're thrifting are going to be probably more generic. It's what the manufacturer has decided, oh, we can replicate a larger tunic easily.

It fits, but it's probably not your style. It could be quite boring. I think that changing the sleeves can make such a big impact. In my book, it's like placing the cap sleeves on the shirt because so many of us hate those tights short sleeves. The shirt that I'm wearing right now is—it did for the book—is the ripples to the end of the sleeve. So that could get more length for you, but also, I like to just remove the sleeves from a shirt, keep those sleeves, and use them as my pattern to figure out how we need to draw the arm hole. But then you can extend the length. You can make it, say, a tulip sleeve instead. You can make it a completely different fabric color. That's a really great way to add your personal style to an otherwise boring garment.

Sarai

That's so fun. You take the sleeve off and then you trace it so you can have the same shape, but then you can add whatever design details you want. That's really fun.

Allie

Yeah. In general, I love using thrifted clothing as patterns. Sometimes you can find something that's quite cheap, and you're like, wow, this shirt is really chea p. It may be a terrible fabric. It may be quite ugly, but it fits me really well. That's a great way to then take it apart and then use all of those pieces as a pattern for any of my looks.

Sarai

That's a great idea. I love that.

Allie

I also love using facing to change things. I will often need to... Sometimes you have a... I'm told that I have a large head. I got told that by somebody who was making a wig for me. I used to perform, and they were measuring my head for a wig and whatever the measurement was, they turned to their assistant and they said, “Have you ever heard of a head measurement larger than this?”

Sarai

I actually have a similar story in the other direction because I I was once... I was getting a massage, which is not something I do very often. And the massage therapist told me that I have a very small head, which I had never heard before and I never thought about before. It's like, one more thing to be self about. And then she asked me if I have to shop in the children's department for hats. She asked me that, which seems ridiculous.

Allie

Oh, my goodness. Oh, the thing to experience. So because of... Well, you won't need this tip, but because of my large head, it could mean sometimes trying to pull things over your head, they can be quite tight. I also find, I think when you have a larger chest. Sometimes when you're wearing high necked garments, it almost just visually extends your chest, and it can just present even larger. I like to show a little bit of skin on the neck. I find a V works much better for me. I like to just add, just snip straight down with your scissors and make a straight slit down. I used to do that on all of my T-shirts, but then, of course, they've got a raw edge. They start becoming a bit wonky, folding over on themselves. They don't fit nicely. Then I finally learned about facing. If you don't know what facing is... You're using another piece of fabric to effectively make a clean seam. You can take a piece of fabric, lay it on top of where you want to cut a slit in, say, your shirt, in a skirt, anywhere that you need a little bit of extra room.

You can sew it on there around the outline of where you want to make that slit. Then you can cut that slit, and then you take that fabric that you've sewed on, you fold it underneath. And by doing that, it then creates this slit that actually has a finished edge to it. And I teach you all about that in the book. So if the spoken medium is not the easiest to understand facing. I've got you covered later on.

Sarai

I love that idea of adding a slit to the neckline. That's something that I hadn't considered because I have the same issue with a lot of high necks, especially on something that's more fitted. It makes me feel like, I don't know, very chesty.

Allie

Very chesty. Absolutely.

Sarai

Chest forward, you might say.

Allie

Yes. You always see my chest before anything else when I enter a room. Now, something easier than facing, much easier to understand... I found that one of my easiest alteration tips is one that people get the most excited about whenever I share it online. I call that the belt method. And so that is when you are trying to, say, crop a shirt or maybe you want to shorten a shirt so that you can add a skirt to the bottom of it to turn it into a dress. And if you've ever tried to crop a shirt before, especially if you've got a chest of any kind, you know that if you've just tried cutting straight across, you put it on, and next thing you know, the front of that shirt is just getting higher and higher and so much higher than the back is. And I have many a time ruined a shirt by doing that. And so what I like to do is the belt method, where I put the shirt on, I find a belt that I have and I put it around my waist over the shirt, wherever I'd like it to sit.

And then I just take some chalk and I trace along the top of that belt. And then when you take the belt off and you take the garment you find, when you look at it, that the line you've drawn is not a straight line. It's going to have a curve to it. It's typically on the front half of your body. And so that has been instrumental for me, because once you then fall along that line and cut along there and you put the shirt back on, the optical illusion of it all and the way that your chest is going to bring up the front of the shirt actually ends up making it look like you have cut straight all the way along it, when in fact, you've added a curve to it to accommodate your body.

Sarai

That's so smart. I love that hack.

Allie

Thank you. It's really saved my life from so many shirts just being relegated to the scrap pile.

Sarai

It can be so hard with hemming a shirt because when you're hemming a skirt, I usually just measure from the floor. I have somebody help me, hopefully, and measure from the floor to figure out the hem length. But it's a little bit harder sometimes with a shirt because obviously the hem is so much higher.

Allie

Yeah, absolutely. Let's see, what else do I have in my bag of trips for you?

Another thing that I love doing is adding a zipper to clothing. I feel like people might at first hear that, and especially, I'd say, in a post-lockdown world where we all started wearing very comfy clothing, and now you see a lot more draping in clothes, which I love. I think people are like, Why would I want add some sort of hard element to my clothing. But I find it extremely useful. I have added zippers for, again, if something fits my chest and it fits my waist once it's on my body. But getting it onto your body can be very tricky. And that it can also be quite true for people who have, say, small waist and wide hips. If you're trying to put on any pants or skirt, it can be really hard to get over that impact on your body. I love adding a zipper to an existing side seam. For me, it's my shirt so that I can unzip it, get it onto my body, and then I can zip it down on the waistband. Then alternatively, if you've got the wide hips, you could unzip it, you could get that top bit over your hips, and then you can zip it back up, and it still fits your waist really nicely.

Sarai

Yeah, that's a great tip. For me, it's my shoulders. I have broad shoulders, which come out with a small head, I guess. But for me, I've-

Allie

It's giving talking heads.

Sarai

Yeah. I've gotten clothing stuck on my shoulders before. You're in a changing room and trying to get it off, and I've gotten it stuck around my shoulders with my arms in the air, and it is terrifying.

Allie

And then you start to hear the snapping of some of the threads. I feel more and more panicked.

Sarai

Yeah. So zippers are a lifesaver for me.

Allie

Absolutely. Then speaking of zippers, a lot of people will know, it's pretty obvious if you don't, that a lot of sewing machines will come with a zipper presser foot. Of course, use a zipper presser foot for sewing zippers. But I also like to use the zipper presser foot for a lot of my alterations, because when you're altering existing clothes, there can be some very tight spaces that you're trying to get into. Because, say, you have to fix up a side seam, and so you've had to open up the waistband a little bit, but you don't want to completely undo it. And so you're just trying to get in to that little space. And when you've got the standard presser foot that's got the foot that extends on both sides of the needle, that can be really difficult to get into that space. I will use the zipper foot for that because, if you don't know this, the zipper presser foot sits on just one side of the needle to allow you to get really close to the zipper. It also lets you get really close to other things. So into tight spaces or if you are sewing near where a button exists.

I can't tell you how many times I've used a standard presser foot, and then it would get to the button, and then you just see a curve in my sewing where you're trying to get around the button.

Sarai

Meandering line.

Allie

Exactly. You're just like, I hope nobody notices. So the zipper foot can really be your best friend in working around all the things that already exist on your clothing.

Sarai

That's a great tip. I love that. I think sometimes people don't know all the different uses that their presser feet can have. They just use it for the thing it's intended for but really, there's a lot of uses, especially for a zipper foot.

Allie

Absolutely. I live by my zipper foot.

Now, speaking of my swerving lines with my stitches, I would say one of the most important things when you are doing alterations is to get a thread color that is similar to the color of your garment. I have so many times just said, because I'm quite a frugal person, and so I've just had standard white and black thread, and I'm like, Oh, nobody's going to notice that I've now had to do some white top stitching on this red garment. I don't... That's actually true... I find that when I've done that, when I used to do that, that is most frequently when my friends would say, oh, was that a thrift flip? It's the mismatched thread. Just having a similar thread color is really just going to give you so much grace on your alterations. If you do sew a bit out of line, it's so much less likely that people are going to notice that if you've got that similar color.

Sarai

That's a good one. I just actually finished sewing a swimsuit, and I ran out of my thread color, the thread I had. I live pretty far from the fabric store, so I ended up using two different colors of thread on it. It's striped, so you can't really tell, but I can tell. I know it's there.

Allie

I had made this sweat set at the very beginning of the pandemic, and I had done it all with this one thread color. Then I had the hem of the sweatshirt or something to finish. But then all of the fabric stores were closed, and I couldn't get the thread color, and I was out of the thread. My friend said, can't you just use a different one? I said, No. This is one of the first times in my that I've dedicated the correct thread color to a garment, and I refuse to finish it until I've got the matching thread. But on the other hand, certainly any thread that's outward facing, you're going to want it to be a similar color. That's something that I think it's so important to remember is that nobody's going to see the inside of your seams. If you've done some wonky stitching to make an alteration happen. If maybe that seam allowance has gotten smaller and smaller, and so you're just going back and forth with that thread, trying to ensure that that's going to stay together and not unravel. If you've had to do some weird things, people aren't going to see the inside of it.

So you can give yourself some grace with this. One of those things is if you're altering a garment that has a lining to it. I was altering my bridesmaids for my best friend's wedding to take out the cups, the bra cups in the front because naturally, they were so tiny and looked ridiculous. I'd undone the lining so that I could take out the bra cups. Then I was thinking, Oh, God, how am I going to... All this lining, the seam is all inside. How am I going to redo this perfectly? Then I found myself, hang on, nobody's going to see this. I don't have to perfectly redo this lining seam. I ended up just pinching it together and sewing it. So there's now a little seam that sticks out a couple of millimeters on the inside of the dress. And you know who knew? Me and nobody else.

Sarai

I think that's such a good thing for people to remember because a lot of us can tend towards perfectionism and just wanting everything to be just so... Especially when you're taking the time to make something yourself. I think a lot of us have that tendency. So giving ourselves permission to not have things be perfect, especially when it's something only you know about...it's a good practice.

Allie

Exactly. On that, my final tip for alterations is to just be realistic about how big of a change you have to make, maybe how much fabric you need add, how much you need to let out a seam. I think we are getting better about being happy with our bodies, or at least more neutral with our bodies. But I have had so many times where I've needed to add fabric to something, and I was feeling some self-inflicted shame about, oh, I hate that I have to make this bigger. So I'm just going to add this inch more, and then it will be fine. It's only an inch, so I don't have to get upset about how much I've had to increase it. I put all the work in to alter it and then it's still too tight. So not only are you now hurting because your body confidence might be a little bit low, but you've also now dedicated all this time to doing something well, just for the results to not work out. That's been really, really important for me, is that when you're cutting a new pattern piece and you see, oh, this is looking bigger than what I wish it were, making it smaller is only going to mean that you've put a lot of work in for something that you're not happy with the end result.

You're so much better off making the size alteration that you need. Then guess what? When it's done, you're going to feel so great that now it fits and it's comfortable and you've got a new garment to feel really confident in as you're going out. Really just make your alterations the way that they need to be, you're going to be so much happier in the long run.

Sarai

Yeah. We always try to tell people measurements are just numbers because I think a lot of people have a lot of emotions around their measurements, and I think that's totally normal and totally natural, given the world we live in. But I think sewing is such a great practice for undoing that and thinking about what these mean in terms of your own physical body, and that's it. It's not about a judgment that you have to layer on top of that.

Allie

Absolutely. I think it does take practice, because I think one of the difficult things with sewing is that you do have to constantly be taking your measurements, and you do have to put a lot of focus into your body. But that is all just practice. As you do things more and more, you become more neutral to it. I've worked through it. I think a lot of people work through it. What's most important is the end result and feeling really proud of what you've created.

Sarai

Absolutely. I totally agree. Altering your clothing as is such a terrific way to do that. It's such a helpful skill to build and to be able to make clothes that fit your body instead of worrying about the other way around. Do you know what I mean?

Allie

Yeah. I think that's really empowering. It's one of the cool things about it is when people say, well, where did you get that? Oh, that's really cool. You got to say, I altered this myself. I upcycled it. Altering your clothes is a great chance to express your own style and personality. I encourage people to look at it as a fun creative opportunity.

Sarai

Yeah, I love that. I've been on this new journey to get my wardrobe to 80% handmade. I don't want it to be perfect. It doesn't have to be everything. It doesn't have to be handmade. But I'd like to get to 80%. And just talking to you makes me think that could include maybe some upcycled stuff because I have so much beautiful vintage and second-hand clothing that I don't necessarily want to get rid of, but I could make it more me. And I love that idea.

Allie

Absolutely. Yeah. We got to use the clothes that already exist.

Sarai

Yeah, definitely. And there's so much out there. So much available.

Allie

Exactly. Yeah.

Sarai

Well, thank you so much for these tips, Allie. It was really fun to talk about this with you. Where can people find you if they want to follow you?

Allie

Yeah, they can find me on allie.upcycles on Instagram. That's Allie, A-L-L-I-E, not alley, A-L-L-E-Y, like Starbucks likes to write sometimes. That makes me feel like a back alley where dumpster are . It's allie dot upcycles.

Sarai

Awesome. And your book, you want to plug your book?

Allie

Yes. So I have my first ever book coming out. The publish date is August 20th of this year in the US. It's very exciting. So as you said at the beginning, it's called your Not Your Gran's Sewing Book: Easy Alterations for the Perfect Fit at Any Size. And I've really made it this labor of love that is for the everyday average sewist. I've got lots of different projects of different levels so that really, if you know how to thread a sewing machine, you can do this. I like to make everything approachable, and I like to add a lot of humor into what I do. It's for people who just want their clothes to fit a little bit better and have a laugh while they're doing it. You can find it on Barnes & Noble. Yeah, Barnes & Noble. And Amazon, if you're international, is probably the best place to go.

Sarai

Great. That's awesome. And maybe we can do a giveaway or something when it comes out. That would be really fun.

Allie

I would love that. Yes.

Sarai

All right. Well, if Allie has you inspired to start your own alterations projects, you might be interested in using our free sewing planner to plan them out. It's a printable tool to help you design and plan your sewing projects. It includes pages for sketching looks, planning out individual projects with sketches and swatches, and you can print as many pages as you need. It's available for free at seamwork.com/go/planner. If you liked this episode with Allie, please leave us a review. We read every review, and we love hearing from you guys. It just makes my day every time I read one of those reviews from you on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you're listening right now. You can also find us on YouTube at Seamwork Video. We also have a new YouTube channel just for this podcast. If you like to listen to your podcast on YouTube, then you can find us at Seamwork Radio on YouTube just to listen to this podcast. You can find us on Instagram at Seamwork. If you'd like to join Seamwork and become part of our private community, plus get access to hundreds of sewing patterns and dozens of sew-along classes, our podcast listeners get a 50% off lifetime discount when you join at seamwork.com/go/podcast50. And that does it for us. Thank you so much for joining us, Allie.

Allie

Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

Sarai

I'm Sarai, and this is Seamwork Radio.